A guest post

Did a little Fishing 101 guest post for a good friend of mine, over at his blog, Straight Eye for the Straight Guy.

It'll be the first in a miniseries of 3. Stay tuned!

My First Time

This is a little story about my very first fishing adventure... That's right. My First Time. Its a story filled with apprehension and anxious preparation. What if I couldn't perform? Would I surrender early on in the game? Would there be blood?

Like all good stories about first times, this takes place on an island getaway. The island in question - Penang. A beautiful place, just in case you haven't been before.

After 2 weeks of hopping in and out of Beach Road tackle shops, I was ready. Armed with my SureCatch rod and reel, I knew that Surely, I would Catch something.  It was practically written in the stars. It was written on the rod, at least. The target was Monkey Beach, located in Penang national park, at the north-western point of the island. The bait was dead prawns.

First, a ferry ride to the destination:

The ferryman said that the corner with the rocky outcrops was a good spot, so we made our way there. It wasn't easy, the rocks were slippery and the rods were unwieldy.

Because it was my first time setting up all this stuff, it took me a good hour to get everything in order. Trying to tie a uni knot, looping it through the guides, and taking it all out and re-doing it because it was on the wrong side of the bail =/.

Finally finally, success! First cast! Was this how its supposed to be? Ok... try again. Cast! Reel back. WTF stuck! After 1 hour of tying the line! No choice... cut. Super low morale. This was where the trusty SureCatch ready made rigs came in handy. Re-rig and sit down to wait. At this point I was thinking: This is a Really Bad Idea and a Really Stupid Waste of Time.

Suddenly, a quiver on the rod. I didn't know what a fish on the end should feel like, but there was certainly some vibration. So I reeled it in...

It was a small black and white striped tripod fish! My first catch ever and what can only be described as Penang's unluckiest fish. I somehow managed to unhook it, and decided on a change of spot, because the tide was coming in and I didn't want to climb back over submerged rocks.

So back to nearer the shore to try it all over again.

Sometime in the midst of the waiting, I managed to figure out why there are so many songs about rainbows, and even saw what's on the other side. However, I forget all about it as soon as I caught the second most unlucky fish in Penang...

OMG it was a pufferfish wtf aren't these things poisonous? 

 

I don't know what I did it but I eventually managed to claim my hook back from this particular puffer. There were a few more which I decided I didn't want to touch and cut away the line instead. Since I was using a sabiki I figured I could catch 6 puffers before I had to change the rig anyway.

Naturally, my friend, seeing all the action, decided he wanted in on this as well:

 

He caught a couple of puffers as well (it seems like the seas there were infested with them), but due to the lack of upper body wear I shall not post those pictures here. Email me if you're really desperate to see them o_O.

Total score after one morning: 6 puffers, 1 tripod fish. And for those who were wondering, yes there was blood, when I pricked myself on the hooks. =P

That pretty much sums up my first fishing adventure. And like all other shamans before me, I had glimpsed the truth on my spirit journey and would henceforth return to my people a changed man...

*Many thanks to my other travel buddy, E, for the wonderful pictures from his DSLR. Naturally, as E is the one taking the pics, he is behind the camera, so you can't see him (unless he takes a picture of a mirror).

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Tomans 101

Snakehead (Channidae) (ikan Haruan) are freshwater fish native to the region and much of Africa. Valued as a food fish in these parts, it is used in many Asian and Chinese dishes. The most popular is of course as sheng yu, or raw fish porridge. Apparently its also supposed to have restorative properties, especially for people recovering from operations (e.g. an operation to reattach your finger after it was bitten off by a snakehead which you were trying to catch in order to cook porridge).

Interestingly, the zoo keeps snakeheads...

Just in case you didn't believe that this was the zoo, here are pictures of some other fish the zoo keeps:

Alligator gar. That's the ugly one on the right. The ugly one on the left is me.

And the polarbear fish. You won't be able to see these in the zoo for now, because they're being moved to the upcoming River Safari.

Back to tomans. So we were at toman pond for the first time. Lots of busted lines because we didn't think to bring wire. But we managed to land a few.

Why no manly pic of someone holding up the toman by their fingers? Because my friend (of course not me la) dropped the thing whilst trying to hold it up, and it wriggled down the steps and back into the water!

Notice the zig zag water marks on the steps. Yes. Most embarrasing way to lose a fish EVER - it wriggled away from you.

Plans to return to the toman pond are already underway. =DDD